


Like A House Afire

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2018 [65]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire, First Kiss, Investigations, Loss, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pets, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 20:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17108012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Texting Thursday prompt:Stargate Multiverse, Rodney McKay, (541): my math teacher staples burger king applications to failed testsIn which Rodney suffers a devastating loss, John steps in to help, and an understanding is finally reached. (No animals were harmed in the writing of this fic.)





	Like A House Afire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for:
> 
> H/C Bingo: Loss of Possessions  
> sga_saturday #196: fire
> 
> *Disclaimer*  
> This fic was not meant, in any way, to belittle the losses the _actors_ have suffered regarding wildfires and the death of beloved pets. The _characters_ feel these losses intently.

Everyone on the street had come to watch the conflagration, and a police officer had to keep pushing the determined lookie-loos back behind the barricade. There were fire hoses aimed at the two adjacent houses to keep sparks from catching hold but there was clearly no hope of saving the house in the middle.

It was quite a show, but John only had eyes for the man sitting dejectedly on the front steps of John’s house.

John didn’t know Rodney very well. The man wasn’t particularly friendly, but John was a detective by trade and so he noticed things. Like the university sticker on Rodney’s car window, which presumably meant he was employed there, and the lack of visitors that spoke of a man with few, if any, friends or lovers.

The fire had already been well underway when Rodney drove up and saw his house burning. The firemen had to restrain him to keep him from running inside to rescue his cat, the same spoiled-looking stripey thing John used to see sitting in the front window. 

John had intervened, taking Rodney back across the street with him. The man had been sitting and staring and breathing in ragged gasps ever since.

“All gone. It’s all gone.”

John sat down next to him, unsure what to say. He didn’t know what kinds of things Rodney had lost in the fire. Mementos? Family heirlooms? The cat, most certainly. Things that couldn’t be replaced. John didn’t really have anything like that. He wasn’t a collector of things.

“Do you think…smoke inhalation would’ve gotten Chadwick first, right?” Rodney asked in a small, grief-stricken voice.

They didn’t know each other, not really, but John put his arm around Rodney for a kind of half-hug. “I’m sure he didn’t suffer.”

Rodney turned, tucking his head against John’s neck; John could feel his tears. It was incredibly intimate, and more vulnerability than John would have ever expected his surly, snappish neighbor to possess.

“Stay with me,” John said, surprising himself. “I can make up the couch for you. Unless you have somewhere else you can go?”

“I don’t have anything,” Rodney muttered wetly.

*o*o*o*

John couldn’t sleep, and not just because the fire department was still camped out across the street, though they were down to one truck to make sure the smoldering remains of Rodney’s house didn’t reignite. No, John was more distracted by the snuffling sounds of his houseguest just down the hall.

It was possible he was more invested in his neighbor than he’d realized. Pretty stupid, really, considering they’d barely shared more than generic exchanges from across the street for the last two years.

John rolled over and punched at his pillow. It would’ve been easy enough to get up and close his door, but he worried Rodney might have a nightmare or something. At the moment he seemed to be sleeping soundly enough, and John mentally cursed the man for it.

It didn’t help that Rodney was wearing John’s clothes. A pair of sweats and an old Blue Angels tee, both of them a bit snug because Rodney was heavier and broader than John. Who could’ve known there’d be so many pitfalls involved in being nice to a man in need?

*o*o*o*

“I need replacements for everything. As soon as possible, obviously. Are you being purposefully dense?”

John had gotten precious little sleep the night before and waking up to Rodney haranguing people on John’s cell phone didn’t improve his mood. At least there was freshly made coffee. He poured a cup and slouched against the counter, watching Rodney pace around the kitchen.

“Reschedule my classes or get that TA to cover them. Oh, please. Like they’ll even care.” Rodney shot John an exasperated look. “No. We’ll, I’ll have to let you know.” He ended the call and tossed John’s phone carelessly on the table. “The arson investigator should be here soon. You mind if I take a quick shower?”

“Knock yourself out,” John said. He tried not to think about Rodney being naked in his bathroom. “Your clothes are in the dryer.”

Hopefully the smoke smell had washed out of them; it had been pretty strong.

“Thanks.” Rodney snatched the cup out of John’s hand as he walked past. “If I’m going to be staying here you might want to lay in more coffee.”

He didn’t give John time to respond.

*o*o*o*

Someone had burned Rodney’s house down. The investigator’s report had come back with unequivocal proof of arson, and a sloppy job of it too. Now the investigation would focus on Rodney himself – his finances, his insurance – to rule out his involvement. John barely knew him, but he was certain Rodney hadn’t set that fire. His grief for the cat was unquestionable.

Having Rodney as a housemate wasn’t at all what John had expected. The man had quickly and efficiently taken over the house in a remarkably short period of time. Now the kitchen table had become Rodney’s office, covered in student papers and two laptops. The bathroom was overrun with an assortment of brand-new toiletries and the living room was cluttered with bags of new clothes and shoes, all of it delivered by a harried looking TA that Rodney had referred to as Skippy.

“Where’s my coffee pot?” John asked.

“That ancient thing? I stuck it in one of the cabinets.” Rodney didn’t look up from the stack of papers he was grading, heavy on the red pen. “Skippy brought mine from the office.”

“Do you need an advanced degree to use it?” John studied all the different buttons and knobs. He’d never seen such a complicated coffee maker. 

“Couldn’t hurt,” Rodney replied. “Here. Let me do it.”

He snatched the empty coffee mug out of John’s hand and started pressing buttons on the machine, fingers moving so fast John couldn’t really see what he was doing. He had no hope of recreating it.

The coffee was amazing. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, how does a college professor afford a setup like this?”

“I do mind. I already have the investigators looking at my finances, I don’t need to share that information with you too.”

John was learning what a prickly bastard Rodney was. He was kind of surprised he didn’t find him more annoying.

*o*o*o*

“Did your pal at Transpo come through on the traffic cam footage?”

“I’m reviewing it now,” Evan said, eyes moving as he followed the images rolling across his monitor.

No offense to the arson investigator, but John had decided to see what he could turn up on his own. There was no way to know if Rodney had been targeted specifically, and if he hadn’t there was a chance the arsonist would hit someone else’s house. Alternatively, if the arsonist _had_ wanted to get Rodney, he might take another stab at it and try to burn down John’s house. Neither scenario was acceptable.

John had reached out to the Neighborhood Watch, and the convenience store at the very end of their street because there was an outside security camera that may have caught the arsonist coming or going. That was also the reason Evan was looking at traffic cam footage. There was no way the arsonist could have passed through without being captured on a camera _somewhere_.

“How’s it going with the new roommate?” Evan asked, mouse clicking as he paused and zoomed in on some of the footage.

“He dumped all my orange juice down the drain.”

“He more of an apple man?”

John snorted. “He’s allergic to citrus. Which he explained at length.” He was pretty sure all traces of citrus, no matter how ephemeral, had been removed from his house. But it sounded like a serious allergy and John had no desire to have to take Rodney to the emergency room.

“Must be weird having someone else in the house.”

“Yeah. Really weird.”

That was a lie. Oddly enough, for someone who’d been living on his own for years and hadn’t had an overnight guest in months, it wasn’t weird at all to have Rodney there. John kind of liked it, if he was being honest. Not that anyone needed to know that.

An hour in, Evan had collected five possibles based on the time the vehicles exited John’s street. They cross-referenced those vehicles with the footage John had been able to get from the convenience store and the report of events from the head of the Neighborhood Watch and narrowed five down to three.

“Work your magic,” John said to Evan.

One of the main reasons he’d hired the other man as his assistant at Sheppard Investigations was because of his contacts. Most of whom were Evan’s ex-boyfriends. John had no idea how Evan managed to stay friends with all of them, but it worked to his advantage most of the time.

Evan had the police department on his speed dial.

“Ronon. Evan. How’s it going?”

John rolled his eyes. Ronon wasn’t an ex-anything. Yet. But he’d expressed some interest in Evan, so maybe a future ex? Or maybe this would be the one that Evan managed to go the distance with.

“Can you run some plate numbers for me?” Evan turned away from John, his voice dropping. “Friday? Sure. What time? Sounds good.”

Cupid’s arrow strikes again.

*o*o*o*

John came home to find the kitchen counters crowded with Chinese take-out boxes and Rodney sitting at the table, staring off into space with an inscrutable expression on his face. It was kind of nice not coming home to an empty house.

“Everything okay?” John asked, opening some of the take-out boxes to get a look at the contents. 

“They haven’t found Chadwick’s remains,” Rodney replied moodily. “But there’s still a lot of debris to sift through. Would it be weird to have a memorial service?”

 _For a cat?_ John wanted to ask. But the mournful look on Rodney’s face stopped him. John had never had a pet – his father was allergic to pet dander, or so he always claimed – so maybe he didn’t understand the level of grief associated with losing one.

“If it makes you feel better, go for it,” he said instead.

That was the right thing to say, because Rodney let out a breath and gave John a tentative smile. “Hope you like Chinese.”

“Who doesn’t?”

They shared a companionable meal. Rodney talked about his job at the university (“My second-year Physics classes are like a proving ground. If they can’t survive me, they’ll never survive in an actual lab.”) and John shared some of the funnier stories from his own line of work (“The guy was wearing a tuxedo, but only the top half. He was totally naked from the waist down, and Evan had to interview him.”).

When all that was left was the fortune cookies – vanilla, not citrus – and John was feeling pleasantly full and content with life, Rodney gave him a side-eye look and started systematically breaking tiny pieces off his cookie.

“So, uh. Your significant other doesn’t mind me staying here?”

“You fishing for something?” John asked in reply, trying not to let his amusement show.

Rodney’s face flushed. “No. Just, you know. You’re a good-looking guy but I hardly ever see…I mean, surely you must be dating.”

John felt a funny twist in his gut that he was fairly sure had nothing to do with the veggie Lo Mein. Had Rodney been watching him? The same way John had been watching Rodney? That seemed unlikely, because wouldn’t Rodney have said something? He wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet.

Then again, John had never said anything either.

“Single at the moment,” he said now. “I had a couple bad dates, so I’ve been taking a break from the whole scene.”

Rodney nodded. “It’s hard. People are usually put off by my intelligence.”

John would bet that wasn’t the only thing putting them off. Just in the last couple of days he’d seen how arrogant the man could be. Pushy, too. But John also couldn’t forget how Rodney had cried during the fire, distraught over the loss of his cat. He had the sense there was a lot of good stuff hiding under that prickly exterior.

“They’re the ones missing out,” he said, turning all his focus on his own fortune cookie. He cracked it open and pulled out the little slip of paper. _Fortune favors the bold_. 

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in –”

“Yeah,” John said before he could censor himself. “I would.”

“You didn’t even know what I was going to ask,” Rodney protested. “Do you have any idea what you’d be agreeing to? I could’ve been wondering if you were interested in robbing a bank.”

“You want to rob a bank?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t want to rob a bank. I just think you should wait and hear the entire question before you jump in with an answer, because maybe you don’t even swing that way and then of course the answer would be no, and I’d be perfectly fine with that. Well, disappointed, obviously, but –”

“Yes,” John interrupted again. He could be bold. He could take a chance. He was only mildly terrified. “I’m interested.”

“Oh.” Rodney looked momentarily perplexed, and then he broke out in a wide smile. “Oh! You know, I always hoped…I mean, it seemed unlikely that someone that looks like you would be into guys. You are into guys, right? I’m not misinterpreting the situation? Because I’ve done that before.”

Bold, John reminded himself. He leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Rodney’s lips, pulling back quickly just in case that had been too much too soon. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Rodney’s tongue darted out, licking his lips, and John was hit with an unexpected punch of lust.

“Okay. Next question, and this one is really important. Like, make or break a friendship important.” Rodney leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Do you watch _Doctor Who_ and, if so, who is your favorite Doctor?”

*o*o*o*

John woke up to the sound of someone pounding on his front door. He groaned and looked at the clock. It was after three in the morning. He and Rodney had stayed up late, watching episodes of Doctor Who and making out like teenagers. It was the best night he’d had in a long time.

Until the pounding started.

When John stumbled out into the living room, he found Rodney cursing and muttering, sitting up in the nest of blankets he’d made on the couch. His hair was sticking up and he was wearing John’s Blue Angels t-shirt to sleep in.

“What the hell is going on?” Rodney asked, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was sleeping!”

“So was I.”

John looked through the peephole in the door and saw a young guy standing on his front step. He looked a little questionable – eyes wide, body jittery – and he had a cardboard box clutched under one arm. John slid open the closet door in the front entryway and pulled out his baseball bat. Just in case.

“Don’t you have a gun?”

“Not looking to kill anyone, Rodney. Stay back.”

John unlocked the front door and opened it cautiously. The guy tried to push his way in, but John kept his body weight against the door to keep that from happening.

“You better have a good reason for waking me up at this hour.”

“Dr. McKay, I know you’re in there!” the guy shouted through the gap in the door. “Come and get your crazy fucking cat!”

John’s attention immediately focused on the box, and as soon as it did, he could hear a lot of aggravated growling and scrabbling coming from inside it. He looked more closely at the guy holding the box and saw that his skinny arms were covered in fresh-looking scratches. He had some on his face as well.

Rodney all but pushed John out of the way. “Chadwick?”

The kid thrust the box at Rodney and the cat seemed to burst out of it at exactly the same time. For one confused moment John thought the cat was attacking Rodney, but it just draped itself across his shoulders and started licking at his head.

“How did you find him?” Rodney asked, his eyes bright with tears. 

“ _Where_ did you find him?” John asked suspiciously.

“I wasn’t gonna keep him,” the guy said defensively. “Just hold on to him for a little while. But he’s crazy! He kept attacking me! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you have a jerk cat, since you’re just as big a jerk.”

Rodney started paying more attention at that. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

“Oh, what a surprise. You never bother to learn any of our names, do you?”

John figured he must be one of Rodney’s current or former students. A very disgruntled one. He looked out past him to the car idling at the curb. He was pretty sure it was one of the cars that had turned up on the traffic cam footage.

“Wait. Second row, third from the left. Advanced Wormhole Theory.” Rodney’s eyes narrowed. “You dropped my class.”

“You stapled a Burger King application to my last test!” the guy shouted. “Do you know how demoralizing that is?”

“You were consistently failing the course. Obviously you aren’t cut out for science. I merely suggested you might want to find an alternate career choice.”

“I should’ve burned the house down with _you_ inside it!”

That was good enough for John. He pulled the guy into the house and pushed him against the wall, holding the bat across his throat to make sure he didn’t think about trying to get away.

“Rodney, get my phone. I’m calling the police.”

“You burned my house down?”

“Rodney!”

Rodney ran off, still wearing his cat like a scarf, and came back quickly with John’s cell phone. The arsonist and would-be cat thief didn’t put up much of a fight after that, he just kind of slumped against the wall. 

“I should’ve stuck with philosophy,” he said dejectedly.

*o*o*o*

The arson investigation was complete. Thanks to the confession from Rodney’s former student, it was an open and shut case. Now it was just a waiting game for the insurance pay-out on the house.

In the meantime, John helped Rodney move into a pet-friendly apartment not far away. As Rodney had pointed out, it was a little early for them to be living together. John agreed, but he knew he’d miss coming home and having Rodney there.

“So, no more fast food applications. Agreed?”

“I can see now that might have been a poor choice.” Rodney had John pressed up against the wall by the heavily padlocked front door of his apartment. In addition to the new locks, Rodney had also installed extra smoke detectors. John couldn’t fault him for that. 

“Very poor.” John slid his hands down Rodney’s back and squeezed his ass.

“You know,” Rodney said a little breathlessly. “Now that all the furniture’s here, it only seems logical to christen the place. You know. Break in the new bed.”

John couldn’t agree more. He kissed Rodney, deep and dirty, and ground against him. He’d be more than willing to strip down right there, but he knew Rodney would have a more enjoyable time on his brand-new prescription mattress.

There was a low growl that John at first thought was Rodney, but then he realized it was Chadwick. He started walking Rodney backwards into the bedroom and exchanged a narrow-eyed look with the cat, who was perched on the back of the couch.

“Don’t push it, buddy,” John warned. Chadwick’s tail swished angrily.

“Fighting with my cat is _not_ sexy,” Rodney said. He reached between them and cupped John through his jeans, pressing with the heel of his hand. John forgot all about the cat. “That’s more like it.”

They made it to the bedroom and John kicked the door shut behind them before Chadwick could slip in. 

What John and Rodney had between them was still very new, and John wasn’t taking it for granted. They fit together in a way he’d never have imagined, and the sex was only a fraction of that. He had a thought that made him huff out a laugh in the middle of a kiss.

“Was there something funny about that?” Rodney asked, disgruntled.

“I was just thinking. You and me, we really get along like a house afire, don’t we?”

Rodney made a face. “Remind me again why I like you?”

John reminded him. Several times.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Chadwick the cat is named after James Chadwick, who helped discover the neutron and contributed to the development of atomic theory.


End file.
